Can We Just Please Try to Be Chalant?
by Space Mercutio
Summary: "If I'd stayed in bed this morning, I wouldn't be facing a mischevious Toji and Kensuke, an Asuka in a worse-than-usual mood, or a paranoid Mr. Kaji." Shinji's class festival gets a little bit out of hand when his classmates agree to a test of courage...with Asuka as his partner! Detective Diaries Universe.
1. Tact Is Very Important to Good Relations

I could already tell by the looks on their idiot faces that Toji and Kensuke were about to run my sanity by a cheese grater.

Looking at them, you might not realize how much trouble Kensuke's innocent smile spelled for me, or how much I dreaded that leer on Toji's face. But then, you've never, _ever_ met my friends.

As for why they were my friends...you know, that's a really good question. I'm going to ask myself that every morning in the mirror from now on. Toji was the epitome of a jock, while Kensuke was in a class by himself in dweebhood. And yet neither of them got the mental signal I was trying my hardest to beam at them-"Stay the heck away from me!"

Because of their inhuman lack of tact (in terms of tact, I rank them way up there along with my pet cockatoo, who happens to scream the most unfortunate and friendship-comprimising naughty words at very inopportune moments), I was forced to let my two friends shamble their way towards my desk, looking for all the world like twin overjoyed schoolboys.

If I haven't emphasized this enough yet, that spelled serious trouble.

It's times like these that I wish I could pilot a giant robot and fight evil aliens, like people do on TV. Alas, I was not blessed with that kind of life, and all my free time was and ever shall be eaten up by the most reputable Kaji Detective Agency. Amen.

"What is it this time? Are we going to sled off your roof, Toji, or are we going to stalk Rei Ayanami all the way home?" I thought and still continue to think that it was a perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances. Toji and Kensuke, contrarily, looked at me like I had the plague and suggested that we play tag.

"Nah, man, we just got wind of our Cultural Festival event! And you better be ready with some TP, 'cuz you're guaranteed to scream like a little baby!" Toji sniggered. My enthusiam dropped to levels below zero percent.

"TP?" I asked.

"Toilet paper," Kensuke said nonchalantly. I personally felt as though he should be as chalant as possible, given what came next: "We're having a test of courage...in the graveyard!"

Let me explain. A test of courage traditionally happens when a group of people go through a scary obstacle course or maze of some sort, without showing signs of fright. Basically, it's the Eastern version of a haunted house, and if you scream, you lose.

It's no secret that our school is positioned happily next to a graveyard. But something else didn't add up.

"Don't tests of courage usually group people in pairs?"

"Well, yeah..." Toji was struggling to keep back a laugh as he answered me, and I was growing more nervous by the second.

"So, doesn't that mean one out of the three of us is going to be the odd man out?"

"Absolutely, Shinji, man..." Now they were both doing their worst at not grinning. "I'll just tell you this-that there list on the board? Your name's on there somewhere. And right beside it is your partner's." Toji and Kensuke shared an evil grin.

* * *

As it happened, I never needed to see this fabled list, as a certain orange-haired rival detective knocked me to the floor on my way there. Asuka turned from the list, saw me, and charged at me like a bull on steroids.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of bull...

"For Pete's sake, are you telling me you're my partner?!" As I rubbed my jaw and my hip, both of which had collided with a nearby desk, Asuka was staring me down with a glare that could destroy Tokyo-3. It took me a bit of time to process the words she had just said because of it.

Asuka glared at Toji and Kensuke, caught red-handed laughing. "You must be bullcrapping me right now!"

Talking through tears of laughter, Toji said, "We're- _ahahahaha-_ not!"

All true, much to my and Asuka's dismay. Thankfully, our homeroom teacher walking into the room saved Toji from getting the snot beat out of him by Asuka. (Or maybe not so thankfully, because I'm not all that sure that I would have rooted against Asuka.)

* * *

Classes passed much too quickly the day before our school. I arrived home to see my roomatw, Kaworu, doing chores. I don't know if he knew this-he probably did, I wouldn't put it past him-but he was guilt-tripping me _really_ hard.

"Hey, Shinji," he said from behind the lamp he was dusting. I waved in response, hoping and praying he wasn't going to feed me another mouthful about 'the agency'.

As luck would have it, he somehow managed to drag me to the agency anyway. How did I keep ending up there?

"I'm sorry we have to do this to you, Shinji," Ryoji Kaji said solemnly while Misato nodded equivocally. "But we've got another case on our hands-er, fins." Pen-Pen waved supportively from behind Mr. Kaji's desk.

"You see, we've gotten a request from the principal of your school, about your cultural festival." Okay, Kaji, you're making sense so far. Please, _please_ don't say any more, and we'll be just fine-

"We've got our own suspicions about some people in your school, and _of course_ we can't have them ruining your cultural festival! So, we'll need to guard your campus."

"That doesn't make it a case. That makes it a stakeout," I said drily. "And anyway, I'm supposed to be _in_ the festival!" Honestly, I think Kaji was just suspicious of our rival detective agency. If that _was_ the case (and it was likely), then he really needed a life. And my time was being wasted.

"But you're Pen-Pen's best assistant," Kaji whined. Both Misato and Pen-Pen nodded enthusiastically.

Kaworu, who hadn't spoken up yet, said: "I'll take Shinji's place. I'm not needed for the festival, and I'd be happy to help!" He smiled brightly, although I was almost certain he was trying his best to guilt trip me. Typical Kaworu-did he even know he was doing it?

Kaji didn't look the happiest about it, but he grunted and accepted. On one hand, I'd say this was great news. It meant I only had to deal with Asuka the next day, on the surface. But on the other hand, it'd be a day with Asuka spent being watched by a penguin and a creepy upperclassman.

"Excuse me, sir, can I get a green card to America? Yes, right out of the country, please," I muttered under my breath. Anywhere but here.

"What's that?" Kaji said.

"Um-I mean-I said, can I go to get...knee guards, for...uh, Asuka?"

"Who's Asuka? An interest of yours?" Misato said, instantly ready to needle.

Just needing to get away, I said, "Um, yeah. Sure." _As long as I don't mention her last name, they probably won't know who it is._

"Also, she's Shinji's partner for their festival event," Kaworu said, nonchalantly. "And that rival detective, you know, Soryu."

Hey, can we stop with the nonchalantness here and just be chalant?


	2. But Being a Good Guy Is Good, Too

"You know, in a way, you're quite lucky to be paired with me. I mean, _I_ hate it, but you're lucky."

This was, of course, the second phase of hanging around Asuka. The first stage was insults (many of which were quite brutal; I somehow survived them all), and we had moved on to the stage where she would stroke her ego for another hour at least.

It was the day of the test of courage, about eight o'clock at night. The graveyard was quite a bit bigger than I had anticipated, but the scares (if you could call them that) were quite lackluster. Asuka and I could at least find common ground in that neither of us was having a good time.

Asuka continued to talk. "Really, I pity the other students. Did you hear that Hikari got stuck with Toji? Between you and me, I think there might have been some jiggery-pokery going on with the partnerships."

"Wouldn't it be Hikari doing the pokery, considering she's the class rep, and not Toji?" I asked.

I thought I'd poked a hole that would deflate her a bit, but instead she went down a different track. "Exactly, my dear Watson! Maybe you aren't hopeless." She gave me a look. "Nah, you're hopeless."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's hopeless is this test of courage."

"I'd agree with you, but it would make me look bad."

"Hey, do you think you could cut it out?"

"Cut what out?" Asuka looked genuinely confused.

"The condescension. Do you even hear what comes out of your mouth? If people knew half the things you say to me, no one would want to be around you."

"...Whatever."

Silence. I wondered if I should apologize. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. Neither of us said anything.

"We're getting pretty close to that church," I said lamely.

"Yeah," she said lamely. I could tell, though, that she was still much angrier at me than I was at her.

We went in the church. The chandeliers all looked like jellyfish. Probably Kensuke's work. Neither of us really cared; we were too withdrawn into ourselves.

All of a sudden, Asuka spoke. "You really piss me off, Shinji. You're spineless, cowardly, and nothing but sarcastic. And you're unlikable to boot."

"...Why did you say that?"

"Clearing the air." By the time she said that, she was already back to regular old Asuka.

I thought for a second. "I can't stand you either, for the record. You've got nothing nice to say to anyone but your own ego, and…"

Someone else was talking. Someone that wasn't Asuka. Somewhere behind us, or maybe to the side of us, someone was saying, "They'll never see it coming. Plus, they're loud enough that they won't _hear_ us coming, either!"

"Asuka, do you hear something?" I asked.

"Weren't you telling me you can't stand me?" Asuka asked, a little confused, a little angry. "Or are you just proving my point? You don't have the balls to speak your mind, huh? This is exactly what I was talking about!"

"No! That's not it!-"

"You wanna prove it? Say it."

At that moment, I found out who was talking. The person was actually two people, one on top of the other, wearing a sheet. Toji and Kensuke, posing as a ghost. Asuka, however, couldn't see a thing. They'd snuck up on her.

An arm-Toji's or Kensuke's? It didn't matter-grabbed Asuka's shoulder. She didn't jump. She didn't scream. She just turned around. Actually, I was worried for Kensuke more than Asuka at that point.

But then Asuka went paler than the sheet in front of her, and screamed.

Was Asuka...afraid of ghosts?

Without warning, the "ghost" tilted sharply forward towards Asuka and me, then veered back and to the side, trying to get a hold on its balance. Asuka was knocked off-balance herself. I was too far away to catch her, but her head was headed straight for one of the pews.

Mercifully, her head missed it by an inch and she was able to catch herself. Toji and Kensuke were able to balance themselves out, too, but if I could help it, they wouldn't stay that way for long.

"What on earth are you doing, Toji?! Trying to kill someone?" I barked, not really knowing what I was saying, only that I was seeing red.

I threw my fist into the ghost. It probably hit Kensuke, because Kensuke yelped and fell off Toji's shoulders. Uncovered, Toji looked sheepish; Kensuke, like a guilty puppy.

"Shinji, man, I had no idea-we were just trying to spread spooks-" Toji protested.

I looked over at Asuka. She was already on her feet. I thought, _I'd want to leave if I were her._ So, I snapped a quick "Be more careful" at Toji and grabbed Asuka's arm, leading her outside.

She jumped a little at my touch-not fully over it, huh?-but softened when she realized it was me. We stood outside the church, with the doors closed. The rest of our class was spread out in the graveyard, but no one was very close to us.

"Are...you alright, Soryu?" I asked after a few seconds of fresh air.

"Thanks…" she said simply. "You're...not a bad guy, idiot."

I think she meant for it to sting. But the way she said "idiot," it felt like a compliment. It _was_ a compliment.

* * *

"You were _watching_?" I asked exasperatedly. It was the next afternoon, at the agency, that awful building that eats at my life like a leech. Speaking of annoying creatures...

"We had Kaworu on the church roof. We didn't know all _that_ was going to happen, though...it was quite interesting," Kaji beamed.

"Watching for what?-"

"-you may ask," Misato interrupted. "We were keeping tabs on general troublemakers. We have to keep an eye out for our beloved Shinji, or else no one could command your Eva."

I looked at Pen-Pen. He had nothing to say about this, except for a penguin noise in support of Misato.

"As it happens, we _did_ get a leg up on the G.I. agency," Kaworu offered.

"We did?" I asked.

"You formed a special bond with Asuka, it seems," Kaworu said, raising an eyebrow and smiling. "Just like the two of us have."

"When you put it that way, it makes me want to burn some bonds," I deadpanned. Kaworu looked hurt.

* * *

Two days passed. Asuka didn't speak to me for a while. Actually, she didn't speak to anyone much except for Rei and Hikari. On that second day, three days total after the incident, I found a note in my lunchbox telling me to come to school early on the first school day of the next week.

I complied. Asuka was sitting on my desk. No one else was around, even Hikari, which was surprising, as she was the class rep. ("Track practice," Asuka explained.)

"Hi, Soryu," I said, a little awkwardly.

"Idiot Shinji," she replied indifferently.

"I'm here," I stammered dumbly. She ignored my dumbness.

"Just know that nothing has changed between us," she explained. "We're still rival detectives. If you steal a case from me, you can expect the throttling of a lifetime from me. Got it?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I shot back coolly. I thought, _This is an Asuka I'm used to. But she's also different. A little more open. And she's still not saying "idiot" with any vitriol. It's endearing._

We were like that for a few minutes. No heartfelt confessions, no kisses, just her sitting on my desk, my rival detective. But also...human, this time.

Toji and Kensuke would later enter the room, at which point, Asuka would act like I was the bubonic plague personified. She would talk to Hikari like nothing was happening, and discuss with Rei detective matters. I would have my life ruined by one of Kensuke's schemes (probably), and Toji would manipulate me into doing his homework.

But for now, Asuka and I were together. I had to say, I was quite content.

I could be chalant like this.


End file.
